Nightfall
by Sigrid Sigbjornsdotter
Summary: Sam takes Elanor out to see a group of elves passing through the Shire. Among them is an elf he once knew - and it will lead to a conversation about time, death, and what comes after.


Disclaimer: It all belongs to the master.

**Nightfall**

Autumn had come. The winds were chilly, and the trees had shifted colour from dark green to bright red and sparkling orange; the fruit orchards drooped with ripe apples and plumes. The woods were full of mushrooms of all sorts, as well as of hobbits – the latter making sure that no chanterell or blue trumpet escaped their baskets.

Sam left his house when the sun had almost sunk behind the hills of Hobbiton and the first stars had appeared. The evening was cold and clear, and he swept the old grey cloak from Lothlorien around his shoulders before going. Elanor stood already by the gate, swept in a shawl and with moonlight in her golden hair.

"Don´t stay out to late, will you?" Rosie said, handing him a lantern she had lit with a candle from the mantelpiece. "Elanor´s too young for elf-parties."

Sam kissed her cheek. "Don´t worry, dear. We won´t talk to them, I just want her to see them. We´ll be home – stay here, Elanor! – we´ll be home before midnight."

With the lantern in one hand and Elanor skipping in front of him, Sam walked down the street. The air was fresh and filled by the sound of crickets; owls hooted, mists hovered above the grassy hills. Berthold Burrowes appeared in the flickering light of a streetlamp on his way home from the tavern.

"Good evening, mayor", he said, taking of his hat as he spoke. "And young miss Elanor! A bit too late for a stroll, isn´t it?"

"We´re going to see the elves!" Elanor happily announced. "Dad´s taking me out to see them."

"Oh", said Berthold Burrowes. He had indeed heard the unnerving rumours of elves seen in the Shire – and the even more unnerving rumours that mayor Gamgee often went to speak to them, just as Bilbo and Frodo Baggins (who seemed to be gone permanently now, although you never knew with Bagginses) had used to do.

"Well", said Berthold Burrowes, "good luck finding them then, I suppose." And he carefully put his hat on as if it could protect him from such strange creatures.

They walked north out of Hobbiton, passed The Hill at distance and soon left the houses and light behind. Elanor now kept close to her father´s lantern, even if the evening was alight with stars and not very dark. There was no road nor path here, and the tall grass reached to Sam´s waist and Elanor´s shoulders. Flowers stroke their arms with cold drops of dew, and soon Sam´s cloak and Elanor´s shawl glittered as if strewn with white pearls.

Elanor yawned. "Are we there yet?"

"Soon", Sam said. "We can see them from the top of that hill. You know that little patch of wood on the other side of the north-west road? That´s were they are."

"How do you know they´re there?"

"Because that´s where I told them to go."

Elanor stared at him round-eyed. "Do you now these elves?"

"No", Sam said. "At least not the one I talked to. He had been sent out before the others to look for a good place for a party, and he asked me about it, and I told him of that wood. The elves usually stay there. As for elves I know, there´s very few of them left in this world."

He didn´t say more, and Elanor knew better than asking. There were many things her father always spoke of with a hint of sadness in his voice, and even more he didn´t speak of she thought. They were quiet until they reached the foot of a great hill.

"Are you tired, Elanor?"

Elanor stifled a yawn. "No. Just a little. I still want to see the elves."

"Are you sure? Perhaps we shouldn´t have gone. It´s very late after all."

"If you think it´s so late", Elanor said, "then why didn´t we go in the day? What are they doing in the days, sleeping?"

Sam smiled. "No, they wander. They wander in the days, party in the evening and set off again before dawn. They love to walk beneath the sun, but even more beneath the stars."

"When do they sleep, then?"

"While they´re walking. They can do such things."

Elanor frowned. "Don´t they slam into trees and such?"

"They don´t. I suppose they can see while they´re sleeping, for they have their eyes open. They´re curious creatures, really. But I´m glad you get to see them a night like this. Elves are never so beautiful as beneath the stars."

Elanor frowned again. Sam smiled at her confusion.

"You´ll see", he said. "You´ll see."

They half walked, half climbed the side of the hill. The grass looked silvery in the moonlight – silvery and golden, when the warm light of Sam´s lantern reached them. Near the top of the hill Elanor burst into a run, then threw herself face down on the crest so she wouldn´t be seen – elves could be very shy, Sam said – and gazed out into the night.

On her left side, the silver band that was the Creek made a bend towards the hill. Below, a vast land of marshes, copses and tiny pools of water like spots of silver spread out from the foot of the hill, a narrow road leading safely between the pools until meeting the road that led north-west. On the other side of that road, there was a small wood of oaks and elms and beeches, dark and shadowy – but enlightened from the inside by dozens of small white lights.

"Do you see them?" Sam asked, lying down beside her.

"I see lights", Elanor whispered. "It´s like they have plucked down the stars and hung them in the trees."

"Such a poet you are! It´s their lamps. But do you see _them_?"

Elanor shook her head. She looked at her father. He had covered the lantern with his scarf but his face was lit from above, and he was looking down at the white lights with a smile on his lips. Elanor knew that smile. It meant that he thought of things she had never seen, like elves and dwarves and wizards, and vast fields and great cities far from the borders of the Shire.

"Look again", Sam said. "Look closely. They are just behind the outer trees, beneath the lamps."

Elanor looked. She looked so intensely she could almost burn down the trees with her eyes.

"I see them", she whispered. "I see them, papa. They´re so beautiful."

And they were. Even at this distance she could see it. Slender grey shapes they were, moving so lightly across the grass it looked as if they flew. Grey cloaks billowed around them, their long hair shining like silver and gold, copper and ebony, and their faces were like made of marble but alive, so alive.

"I see them, papa", she said again.

"Ssh", Sam said. "Listen."

A faint wind blew into Elanor´s face. Suddenly she could hear voices, clear and melodious, in the wind. She heard ringing laughter, joyful chatter, the delicate tunes of harps. The sounds of the elves filled her head and her heart. She could almost smell their food and taste their wine. She could lie there the whole night, watching those fair shapes move across the clearing in the light of the silver lamps – but time ran away faster than she had thought was possible. Suddenly she regained her senses when her father shook her, and when she looked at the sky, the stars had moved as if a whole hour had passed.

"Elanor", Sam said, "it´s time to go."

"Just a little while more!"

"No, Elanor, you´ve been here too long. Look, your dress is all damp by the dew! You must go home before you get cold."

Elanor frowned. "_I_ must go home? What about you?"

"I´ll stay here a bit longer. You´re not afraid to go home alone, are you?"

It was the right thing to say. Elanor looked at him defiantly. "Of course I´m not! Stay here then, I´ll go. But I´ll take the lantern."

Holding the lantern high to see where she put her feet, she left the crest of the hill. Sam stayed behind. The sight of the elves had brought so many memories – of good things like Rivendell and Ithilien and being on adventures (as long as they were relatively peaceful) and camp-fires, and great cities, and the golden trees of Lothlorien; and of bad things, like the passing of the elves and Frodo and Gandalf leaving him. Being the mayor of Hobbiton gave him little time for his own, and being the father of a dozen children stole all the time that was left. Moments like these were rare.

"He´s Remembering", Elanor said as she arrived at home, where all lights were out expect for the lantern above the door and the candles on the mantelpiece, and Rosie sat in a chair by the embers of the fire waiting for them to come home.

"Let him do that", Rosie said. "He seldom has time to."

But Sam didn´t linger long on the hill. The fair voices were calling, the enchanting lights persuading him to come. For once he didn´t resist. For once he walked down the hill and in the darkness found the road that led to the woods. He didn´t know it, but with the moon lightening his face and the grey cloak of Lothlorien on his shoulder he looked like a creature almost as magical as he elves.

That elf he had talked to earlier, asking for a good place to stay for the night and even inviting him to the party, had reminded him of someone, an elf he had known long ago. He had to see if that elf was here. If he was Sam would dearly like to meet him, but he feared these elves were on their way to the Havens, and then it would grieve him just as much.

He reached the woods not long after he left the hill. The moon had moved only a little bit across the sky, and the night had grown only a little darker. But the woods were not dark, not at all. As he stepped in between the old tree-trunks into the clearing he was almost blinded by the light, and even more so by the beauty of the sight that met him.

Silver lamps hung from the trees. Silver hair glinted in the light of silver stars. Silver tunes rang from the strings of silver harps. Sam had seen so much wondrous things in his life that by now, he didn´t longer stare in disbelief – but the music and the light filled his heart with a soft, warm joy not unlike the joy of holding a newborn child. A great fire burnt in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by tables of food and elves in grey cloaks with flowers in their hair.

They heard him, of course, when he approached. At first, fair faces looked at him with a hint of uncertainty – surely he had not come to drive them away from where they were, or to disturb their party? But then the elf he had talked with earlier made his way through the crowd of slender shapes and loaded tables and called: "Master Gamgee! Have you come to join us?"

"Well, I have", Sam said, "if it´s not too much problem, of course. You remind me of someone, you see, mister, someone I knew, and I had to see if that someone happened to be here too."

"He is", the elf said, calling over his shoulder: "Las! Master Gamgee is here! You may stay, of course", he said to Sam. "You was the one who found us this place, after all."

The crowd parted once more to let through another elf, and Sam smiled at the familiar face. His hair was not dark, not silver, but gold, and crowned with cornflowers and lilies; but he was dressed as simple as ever in a light green tunic beneath that old grey cloak of Lothlorien.

"Sam", he said, and his smile was the same as ever – playful, light-hearted, and with a hint of eternity like it would outlast the ages. And maybe it would, for even during the terrible nights they had gone through together, that smile had always returned with the coming of dawn.

"Mister Legolas", Sam said. "You haven´t changed a bit!"

"But so have you", Legolas said with a smile, and that was true – in more than one way. Sam remembered when he first had met Legolas, and how old the elf had seemed. Sam was still the younger, of course, but somehow he didn´t feel so. Elves grow slowly after all, and hobbits grow fast; and Sam was the only one of the two who had a family.

"Come and meet my father", Legolas said and led him through the glade. "This is my brother, Eithelend, whom I believe you have met already?"

"I have", Sam said, smiling at the elf who had invited him. "I thought you must be relatives. Don´t you have a sister too?"

"Somewhere", Legolas replied, searching the crowd with his eyes as they made their way through it. He was talking, but Sam didn´t really notice. The beauty of the elves had stunned him again. The dozens and dozens of silver lamps caught in the depths of ancient eyes; the smooth movement of billowing cloaks as the elves walked across the glade; the sound of crystal-clear laughter and the sight of such fair faces. A lone flute spread golden tunes to the silver of the harps.

"There she is!" Legolas delightedly called out and dragged Sam to the place where the harpists sat on a fallen log. The elf who played the flute stood there, eyes closed, deeply concentrating on the flute – not completely unlike Legolas concentrating on hitting some orch-chest with his bow. In fact, she looked even more like him than Eithelend, although the hair that floated down her slender shoulders was the colour of the moon and not the sun.

"Merilin!" Legolas said and the flute stopped. "I believe you have not met Samwise the Brave?"

"I have not", the elf said with a smile. "But Eithelend told me of him. Did you know it was he Eithel talked to before?"

"I did, but not that he would come. That idoit Eithel didn´t tell him I was here."

"Don´t say so about your brother", Sam said. "He was very polite. It was my fault for not asking. At least he invited me, and I did come, so all is well."

"It sure is", Merilin said, a warm smile on her lips. She seemed older than Legolas – not less light-hearted, but less playful.

"Now let´s go see my father", Legolas said. "Go on playing, Meril, and maybe Orthelian will notice you."

Merilin scowled at him, but not exactly angrily. If there was on thing Sam had noticed about Legolas, it was how hard people found it to be angry with him.

The dancing, disturbed at first by Sam´s arrival at the glade, had begun again. So had the drinking of wine and the eating of delicious food – although, if he hadn´t been such a polite guest and allowed himself to be dragged away from the tables by Legolas, Sam could have eaten far more than the elves who seemed only to be nibbling at their food – and as they approached the far end of the clearing, a couple of elves began to sing a merry and rather boisterous song deafening the harps and Merilin´s little flute.

And there, at the edge of the clearing, with the knotty branches of an old oak tree stretching great and green above, sat the elven-king in a chair of ornamented wood. He wore a crown of late summer flowers and a robe of pure silk, floating like a green and grey river down his slender body, and looked a slightly older, slightly taller, and much more mature Legolas. But he was not stern, like Sam had thought he would be. He was laughing, and his laughter rang loud and clear across the glade. A couple of elves, all dressed in silks and looking like wise, old and stern counsellors, were sitting or standing around him and they were all laughing merrily. And although they stopped as they saw Sam, there was a merry flicker in the elven-kings eyes that didn´t vanish.

"_Ada_", Legolas said, "this is Samwise Gamgee. I´ve told you a lot about him."

"So you have." The King looked at Sam curiously. "I heard it was you who told Eithelend about this place?"

"Well, it was, Your Majesty", Sam said, "but it was no big thing, really. I am glad to be able to help. Elves doesn´t pass through the Shire as often as they used to."

"I believe not", the King said thoughtfully. "Since the havens are abandoned, why would anyone go there? But that´s actually were we are going. Abandoned or not, it´s a good place to build ships and set sail."

"To the Havens?" Sam looked from the King to Legolas. "You´re leaving?"

"Not me", he said, adding with a sad smile: "Not yet."

"It´s Eithelend who´s leaving", the King said, and now he too looked sad – which wasn´t strange, Sam thought. If any of his children would sail away to some distant place like that, his heart would break. "Eithelend and most of these elves with him. We have come to say goodbye."

"Not for ever, of course", Legolas said. "We´ll come after, in time."

"Well, it´s good you aren´t leaving yet", Sam said. "The world will be so much duller without you, Legolas. It´s such a sad thing you elves are leaving us, really."

"Perhaps it is. But everything comes to an end, doesn´t it?"

"But why is Eithelend going before you? It doesn´t seem very sensible to me. I mean, if I would leave my home – which I already have, as you know – I would take my family with me if I could. Not that I did, but I couldn´t, and I had mister Frodo along."

"And Eithelend will have a lot of his friends", King Thranduil said. "But it´s not completely his choice. I cannot leave yet, Legolas cannot leave yet, Merilin doesn´t want to leave, and Eithelend – the sea-longing has awakened in Eithelend, and he cannot withstand it. I suppose that unlike Legolas, Eithelend doesn´t really have anything that binds him to Middle Earth. He has no particular reason to stay here any longer, and therefore nothing to keep the sea-longing away."

"It was my fault it awakened", Legolas said.

King Thranduil gave a deep sigh. "If you say that once more, _ion-nin_, I´ll lock you into the dungeons for the rest of your life. You did your best to try to stop Eithelend, and he didn´t listen. I won´t hold him responsible either. He made a mistake, that´s all."

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"Well, as I said, Eithel made a mistake. He heard Legolas talk about the sea – as did we all, so it´s not your responsibility, Las – and wanted to see it for himself. Maybe he wanted to know if it was worth his little brother´s attention. And maybe it had already awakened in him, although he didn´t even know it himself. We all tried to stop him, but it didn´t help. Eithelend is just as stubborn as his brother and sister."

"Which is no strange", one of the elves standing behind him said with a playful smile in Sam´s direction. "They have no parent from which they could inherit un-stubborness."

"Gwiwileth truly was stubborn", Thranduil said.

"As are you."

"Not as stubborn as to foolishly run away to the sea when everybody tells me not to."

"You´re the King, my lord, so I suppose you´re right."

"I always am." Turning his attention back to Sam, the King said: "Forgive my counsellor´s incapacity at keeping quiet, master Gamgee. Eithelend went to the sea, and he was lost. He was never quite the same after that. So now he leaves us, and that´s good for him."

"I am sorry", Sam said.

"So am I, but we will come after soon enough. Why talk about such things a beautiful night like this? The moon is shining, the tables are loaded, and I´m quite sure you and Legolas has a lot to talk about. Legolas! Why don´t you take our guest away from this dull old party of counsellors and let him enjoy the feast? He was the one who found us this place after all!"

Perhaps you never tire of elves because they never tire of themselves. They could laugh and sing and dance all night, always finding new wonders – a star they hadn´t noticed before, a joke they hadn´t heard, a slight change of season that made the air feel different – and Sam could watch them just as long. He sat with his back against a tree and watched as they laughed and danced and sung in the light of the silver lamps. These elves, unlike others he had met, spent a lot of their time talking to trees, or singing for them, or stretching out among their branches as easily as if they had been only a foot from the ground. They were very merry – although they were about to leave Middle Earth, they seemed more keen on celebrating the time that was left than grieving the time that was not left. They were all much like Legolas – and in fact more hobbit-like than any other elves Sam had met; if an elf could ever be compared to a hobbit.

Their food was delicious of course, but sadly, the food was seldom what Sam remembered most from elven parties. He was too occupied with watching and listening to pay as much attention to the food as it deserved. When Legolas returned to the tree were he sat after dancing in the glade with some other elves, Sam had stopped eating and was content with sipping a cup of wine.

"I´m a terrible host, am I not?" Legolas said, dropping to the ground beside him.

"Why would you be?"

"Because I´m leaving you sitting here alone."

"I am fully content with sitting here alone."

"But I should be keeping you company, shouldn´t I? I think Erestor told me something about that sometime. He tried to teach me etiquette, you see."

"Why would you do as the etiquette says? I see no point of following rules that doesn´t allow you to enjoy a party the way you want to enjoy it. It´s nothing we do in the Shire anyway."

Legolas tilted his head to one side, pondering. "Maybe it´s a Noldo thing. But I have danced enough for tonight anyway. I´ll see a thousand of nights still in Middle Earth, so I am in no hurry with the parties. It´s those who are about to leave who must enjoy themselves the most."

Sam nodded. "Won´t it feel hard to be so close to the sea and not follow the call, or whatever it is that draws you to it?"

"I suppose it will. But I like the sea. I´ve seen it some times and I was always able to resist that call. It´ll be more difficult when I know I could just jump onto my brother´s boat and sail away I suppose, but I´ll manage."

"So when are you leaving?"

"Oh, not yet." He shook his head. "Not in many years. I won´t leave this world before Aragorn does. And that´s a day I don´t want to think of."

"But it´s inevitable."

"I pretend it´s not." He gave Sam a sad smile. Suddenly Sam saw not only the light the silver lamps cast on the elf´s face, but the shadows it created. "He says, and Elladan and Elrohir says, and my father says, that I should prepare for the day Estel dies. But I cannot. I cannot imagine how it will feel. And I don´t think that anything I do will make it feel better when that day comes."

Sam shook his head in understanding. "Of course not. Sometimes I think I should prepare myself for the possibility that Rosie or any of my children dies before me, but like you, I don´t think it would help. And one can´t go worrying all day long about what could happen if that or that would occur."

"Where does hobbits go when they die?"

"How shall I know that? It´s not like I´ve talked to someone who has died."

"Don´t you have any idea?"

"Not exactly. I suppose there are those who have guesses, and those who think they know. But no one does, and I don´t have a clue. I just hope it´s somewhere warm and peaceful."

Legolas looked at him, half in wonder, half in confusion. "Aren´t you afraid to die?"

"I don´t think there´s anything to be afraid of."

"Well, I wouldn´t know. I´m immortal."

"So you are. Maybe that´s why you´re afraid."

Legolas shot him a quick glance. "I´ve got nothing to be afraid of. I was just wondering whether you were or not, because if I had been a mortal like you, then maybe I´d be afraid."

"And that means, I suppose", Sam said, "that the thought of death makes you afraid, even though you know you´re safe from it."

Legolas went quiet.

"But what I was trying to say is that maybe you´re afraid of death simply because you know you´ll be spared that fate. When someone is dying, his relatives and friends has often harder to accept his fate than he has himself. It´s harder to lose than be lost, it seems, and you elves – well, you´re never lost. You just lose."

Legolas bit his lip. "It´s true we just lose. Would your Rosie die before you, you´d see her again when you die. But I wont see Estel again. When he dies, then I´ll really have lost him."

"I didn´t mean like that", Sam said. "How do you know you´ll never see him again? No one knows were Men come when they die. Why wouldn´t they come to Valinor?"

"What says they would come to Valinor?"

"What says they wouldn´t? It´s the land of the gods, after all."

"It doesn´t sound very likely."

"But not impossible either."

"Do you think I´ll see Estel again ,then?"

Sam smiled. "I have no idea. But when you don´t know how it will end, always think it will end happily, I say. I´ve seen stranger things. I walked to Mordor and back and survived, I saw the Golden Woods, I got a kiss from Arwen Evenstar and Rosie said yes to me. So who´s to say that when you arrive at the shore in Valinor, Aragorn wont stand there waiting for you; and when I die, I will not wake up in some nice cosy place with Rosie smiling at me and Frodo sitting in a chair in a hobbit-hole smoking his pipe? I don´t know what death will be like; but if I have to think of it I´d rather think of it like that."

Legolas looked at him, his eyes innocent and ancient, mistrusting and hopeful and sad at the same time, as if he wanted so badly to believe in a happy ending but found it very hard to. Then his eyes began to wander, and they found the stars, and somehow the sight of the lights of Varda seemed to give him hope – for the shadows left his face, and his eyes shone as if a million of stars had been lit in them. "Then I´ll think of it like that too."

"Good", Sam said. "I don´t like to think of you being sad. You´re an elf of Eryn Galen; you should be merry and talk to trees, not go being sad and think of death."

"I´ll leave that to the Noldo, then", Legolas said, smiling that mischievous smile that was like the breaking of dawn after a stormy night. "Come", he said, offering Sam his hand. "The night´s young and we´re young. We´ve been sitting here long enough."

Elanor shivered a little as she trudged along the narrow road. Not because she was scared, of course, even though it was dark and the light of her lamp barely reached more than two steps away. Perhaps she was a bit nervous, but apart from that, she had really no reason to be shivering.

The night was chilly; a first sign of the approaching autumn. Moths kept bumping into her lantern, lured by the yellow light, their grey wings touching her hand. Tall grass stroke her legs and the dew left glittering drops on her shoes. Mists rose from the meadow and the woods around; behind her, Hobbiton was shrouded in white, letting through only a few distant spots of light from the street-lamps.

Rosie hadn´t wanted Elanor to go. She had told her daughter to go to bed while she went out to see where Sam was, but Elanor had begged her for allowance go instead. She hadn´t exactly said why, but she wanted so badly to see those elves once more – the lights in the trees, the fair shapes of grey like shadows come to life! She wanted to see them again, and she had hoped that Sam was still on top of the hill from which she had seen them first, so she could take a look at them again.

And now she half regretted she had gone, for Sam was not on the hill, and she had not met him on the way, and she realised there was only one place he could be: with the elves. Although knowing elves was not dangerous she couldn´t help but feel a little nervous – but not scared, of course – because such fair, wise, ancient creatures must be very stern and would certainly look down on her. Perhaps they´d be angry with her because she disturbed them. But she wasn´t going to go home and tell her mother she hadn´t dared to approach the elves and so she walked on, closer and closer to the woods were silvery light slipped out between the mossy branches.

Elanor had foolishly hoped to be able to sneak into the glade, take a quick look to see if her father was there, and if he wasn´t, slip away unnoticed. She did underestimate the elves. They saw her lantern and heard her coming long before she could distinguish any shapes between the trees. In a moment, the chatter and laughter and singing was hushed, and there was silence – a great, waiting silence, as if even the trees held their breath. So did Elanor, at least. Afterwards she did admit that she was, perhaps, a little bit afraid when three slender shapes broke away from the trees and stepped out onto the road before her. And she did admit that the shiver along her spine when they moved closer to her was, perhaps, a shiver of fear rather than of cold. But then she saw her faces, and the first thing she saw was not that eternal beauty or the shimmer of their hair or the reflection of moon and stars in their eyes, but the warmth and kindness of their smiles. They didn´t seem angry. They seemed curious – maybe slightly nervous just as she were, but most of all curious.

"Good evening", one of them said as they got closer. A dozen of other elves, half hidden behind the trees, watched her from a distant, and she could hear them whispering to each other. "A wonderful night for a stroll, is it not?"

The voice of the elf speaking was clear as the sound of summer rain, and very friendly.

"I – I was looking for my father", Elanor said, and managed to keep her voice steady. "His name is Samwise Gamgee. Have you seen him?"

"Indeed we have!" the elf said with a broad smile. "He´s here. So you are his daughter?"

"My name is Elanor", Elanor said and gave him a shy smile back. "Elanor Gamgee."

"An honour to meet you, miss Elanor! My name is Eithelend. Come along, and we shall find your father."

To Elanor´s horror, as they reached the middle of the silver-lit glade, the elf (whose name was so long and strange she had already forgotten it) called for attention and loudly pronounced the arrival of Samwise the Brave´s daughter. Elanor was so shocked she didn´t know what to say, but luckily, the elves chattered so much she didn´t have to say anything. They seemed for some reason excited by her presence, and she thought she heard someone saying something about her being beautiful – but the elf who said it must have been talking about someone else, for they were elves and she a hobbit, and they couldn´t possibly find her beautiful.

Then she heard a familiar voice, and a familiar figure made its way among people twice as tall as him. "Elanor!" Sam burst out, and she throw herself into his arms – not exactly knowing why she felt so relieved, but feeling it anyway.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, holding her at an arms´ length. "Shouldn´t you be sleeping?"

"I´m nineteen years old, I don´t have to go to sleep at eight!" Elanor snapped. "Mama wanted to go look after you and I said I could do it because I knew where you were. She just wanted to know you were fine, with that wolf they saw in Bywater and all."

"I doubt she had the wolf in mind when she sent you to look for me", Sam said with a smile. "But she´s right; I should go home. She won´t get any sleep till I´m back."

"Oh, you wont be going already, will you, Sam?" another elf said. He looked a bit like the elf with the long name, but somewhat younger. "You´ve only just arrived!"

"Don´t try to fool me, Las, I´ve been here for hours", Sam said.

"Oh well, maybe you have, but miss Elanor hasn´t. You want to stay a while more, don´t you, my lady?"

"Well..." Elanor looked uncertainly from his father to the elf. It was hard to withstand that eager smile. And no one had ever called her _my lady_ before. "I _would_ love to stay... But I wouldn´t want to make my mother worried. That would be awful. You decide, papa."

"Oh, _come_, Elanor", Sam said, "you know so well that I´ll do exactly what you want when you put it like that. Very well then, Legolas, we´ll stay a little more."

Legolas, his eyes glowing with mirth, led her through the glade to show her the silver lamps and the tables of food and the goblets of wine and the harp-players. He presented her hastily for another version of himself – an older one in shimmering robes – who turned out to be his father, and as they walked away Elanor heard her father say to Legolas father that 'it´s the eyes. You cannot withstand them', and the elf said, 'that´s the way it is with children'.

That evening floated away like a dream. Afterwards, when she lay half asleep in her bed at home, all she had seen and heard and felt in the glade would come drifting into her mind and she wouldn´t know whether she were dreaming or remembering. When she fell asleep she dreamt about stars hanging in trees, moons captured behind dark eyelashes, cloaks made of twilight, a harp singing as if with a real voice; and when she woke up, she didn´t know what she had dreamed and what she had really seen. But she knew one thing, and that was that it had all been wonderful.

Sam spent most of the time talking with Legolas. They were old friends; Sam had mentioned him a lot of times when he talked about his great Adventure all those years ago, and they seemed to have a lot to talk about. Elanor was invited to dance, even though she only felt clumsy and slow, and the elves taught her a few of their songs and complimented her for her singing. She had never had so fun.

Legolas and her father seemed to have fun too, but she couldn´t help but notice the looks of solemness they shared at times. It was as if they both were thinking of something sad, and sometimes they realised the other one was thinking of it too and then they looked at each other as if saying 'it´s a sad thing, really,' and the other one shrugged like 'yes, it sure is.' Later on she noticed something like sadness among the other elves too. It was subtle, so subtle she wondered if she imagined it, but it was there – a sort of longing in their voices as they sung, a sort of desperation in their laughter. And there were those looks, and the things they did when they thought no one saw: putting their hand to a tree or casting a glance at the stars as if it was the last time they´d see them.

Time passed so quickly. Rosie must have been worried sick. When they left, the elves were also preparing to leave: packing down the food and the tables, taking the silver lamps from the trees. It was still dark, the moon and stars throwing their white light upon the world, mists hanging low, dew glittering. Elanor yawned. She could have fallen asleep where she stood.

"We may walk through the Shire on our way back", Legolas said as they were about to go. "Keep an eye out for us, won´t you?"

"Of course I will", Sam said. "I might even follow you a while along the rode. You´ll be quite a small company when you come back, I suppose. You might need someone to cheer you up."

Legolas smile was sad as he replied. "You´re more than welcome. It´ll feel strange when Eithel is gone. It might be a hundred of years before we meet again – or even more than that – and even though it isn´t much for him, or for Merilin, or my father... well, it´s quite a great part of _my_ life. And yet I cannot wish for time to go faster, because that´ll mean I wish Estel to die sooner, and - "

"And that´s why you should stop thinking", Sam said. "You´re thinking too much. If you ask me, the problem with you elves is that you´re so used to having all time in the world, you get confused when you suddenly haven´t. But if you spend all your time trying to decide what is a good thing to think and what is not, time is simply going to run away with you and suddenly you stand there and you haven´t used your precious time as you should have done."

Legolas frowned. "Perhaps you´re right", he said after a while. "Our time in Middle Earth is limited, and it´s never been before. Is that what you mortals do? Try not to think of it?"

"We try", Sam said, "and some succeeds. Those are the happy ones, I believe. The thought of how fast time runs away really can be frightening, but you just have to accept it, and then you can live on without bothering about it. That´s what I do, a least, but maybe it´s a hobbit-thing."

"Hobbit-things are good things, I believe", Legolas said. It astonished Elanor that an elf would say that – if hobbit-things were good, what mustn´t elf-things be? - but they didn´t care about her, so she didn´t say anything. They were absorbed in things she didn´t understand, and somehow she felt she wouldn´t understand even if they explained it to her.

"I really must go now", Sam said. "You take care of yourself, and we´ll meet again soon. And don´t worry. It´ll all be fine."

"It´s been good to talk to you", Legolas said. "I don´t exactly feel better, but I feel like I´ll manage, and that´s enough for now. I don´t know if I believe that Estel will come to Valinor, but if he doesn´t – no, I won´t think of that. You´re right. It wont help thinking of it."

"You said earlier all things come to an end", Sam replied. "So does the bad things. So even if you would have to live without Strider a long time – well, that time would end one day, and you´d see him again. Or perhaps you´d die too, but then you wouldn´t know you missed him. But I really, really have to go now. Farewell!"

"Till next time", Legolas said.

Sam set of, Elanor stumbling with sleepiness by his side. He held the lantern and it swung to and fro in it´s handle, the yellow light dancing. The road meandered up a little hill and from the top they could see the lights of Hobbiton and the reflection of the moon in the windows.

Elanor looked back. Far below a long trail of grey shapes, each holding a lamp, some leading white horses carrying their luggage, were about to set of to the west. She could see the elven-king, easily recognizable in his silk robes and flower crown, and she thought she could see Legolas with his hair of spun gold.

The sky had turned a lighter grey, reddening by the horizon. Pale colours spread over the Shire. A fox slipped through the high grass; far away deer grazed in the edge of the forest. Elanor looked at the elves again. Stars still glinted in their hair, but some colour was brought to their grey cloaks; some turned out to be pale green, others blue. The light of their lamps was bleached, but no doubt they would look as fair in the light of dawn.

But it wasn´t dawn to them, Elanor thought. To them it was nightfall, slowly fading away into darkness.

Though she didn´t know why she thought so.

* * *

><p>Ada - father<p>

Ion-nin - my son

It´s unorganized, overdone, clichéed, and I totally overused the word 'silver'... bear with me. At least after a year of fanfiction-only writer´s block I have finished a story! Thank you for reading, and please make a poor author happy and leave a review! :)


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